A third-period natural hat-trick by junior forward Michael Hodgson opened up a tie game and propelled the Gabriel Richard boys’ hockey team to a 4-1 victory, its fifth straight, over visiting Grosse Ile Thursday night.

Hodgson scored all four of the Pioneers’ (15-3-1, 6-0-1 Catholic League) goals in the game and now has 40 on the year to go along with 17 assists for a total of 57 points.

The game was tied at one four minutes into the third when Jack Skrzynki hit Hodgson in stride in the neutral zone along the near side boards. He skated into the Devils’ zone and past defender Jacob Trombley and used a beautiful left to right move to undress goalie Jordon Gilbert before putting the game winner into the back of a wide open net with 12:53 remaining.

Gabriel Richard Coach Rick DeSana said he was pleased with how his team moved the puck to generate goals.

“What was really nice about his (Hodgson) goals tonight was that he didn’t generate them himself,” DeSana said. “Another player generated them for him because obviously everyone knows we have him and the secret was out the first day of the season.”

“His other line mates worked hard and created some opportunities so that he could get some open shots.”

The Pioneers came out of the gate playing aggressive hockey and outshot the Devils 13-5 in the first period, but Grosse Ile’s sophomore goaltender Gilbert was up to the task and turned every one of them away en route to a 0-0 tie heading into the second.

Hodgson opened up the scoring just over seven minutes into the period when he scored an unassisted short-handed goal.

The Devils were on a power play following a two-minute minor for boarding on Tyler Riney and attempting to clear the puck out of their zone when Hodgson stole the puck from Robert Bialobrzeski at the blue line, skated to his right and fired a wrist shot into the top right corner at 7:14 of the second period.

Grosse Ile would find a better result on its next power play.

Devin Dickow picked up a cross-checking penalty late in the second and the Devils pounced on the opportunity.

Hunter McGough took a pass from Mitchell Daly just inside of the blue line and fired a shot into traffic. Abedin Ziberi redirected the puck past a screened Matt Mandernach with 1:05 left in the second to tie the game.

Grosse Ile was the more active team in the period, winning 14 of 20 faceoffs and out shooting Gabriel Richard 14-6.

DeSana was not pleased with his team’s effort in the second.

“First I think Grosse Ile is much improved from the beginning of the season,” said DeSana. “I thought they were a good team and played right with us, if not out played us, in the second period.”

“We only had one guy working on the puck and our effort wasn’t there, when the efforts not there that’s what is going to happen.”

The effort picked up in the third.

Gabriel Richard outshot Grosse Ile 15-5 in the third and seemed to get to every loose puck.

Senior captain Dickow set up the final two goals with two perfect passes to the tape of an in stride Hodgson who found the back of the net.

Riney and Brendan Damron both tallied assists for Gabriel Richard.

Gilbert stopped 31 of 35 shots in the losing effort.

Grosse Ile Coach Jason Durbin said he would like to see his team get back to playing like it was when the Devils were on a four game winning streak.

“I’d like to see us getting back to how we were playing two weeks ago,” said Durbin. “I thought everyone was paying well. Everyone was giving 110 percent effort on the ice and they were being rewarded for their hard work.”